Cully residents are collaborating with the city to address two of the major concerns in the Northeast neighborhood: a lacking business district and streets that are in poor shape. The yearlong planning process goes beyond mere neighborhood involvement—Cully residents will be assisted by the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) and the Bureau of Transportation. BPS will take the lead on the business district improvements while the Bureau of Transportation will largely handle the process to improve the area’s streets.
The planning period, according to Debbie Bischoff, Northeast district planner for BPS, will be comprised of “public process, engagement with the community, and then development of the plan recommendation.” Members of the public will have the opportunity to share their thoughts with city officials over the course of multiple meetings and other neighborhood events.
Perhaps the key factor as to why Cully lacks a sufficient business district is that only two percent of the total land in the neighborhood is zoned for commercial use. According to Bischoff, in most neighborhoods in Portland the average amount of commercially zoned land is around 10 percent. One of the project’s primary goals is to bump the amount of commercially zoned property in Cully closer to the average. “This area is deficient,” she says of Cully. What’s more, many of the businesses that do exist in Cully are not geared towards the young families that are making up more and more of the area’s population. “A lot of it is adult uses,” says Bischoff. “There’s not a lot of neighborhood-serving, family friendly type uses.”
Cully neighborhood association chair Kathy Fuerstenau agrees with Bischoff’s sentiment. “It’s nice to get that area a little more defined and recognize it as a business area and try to get more businesses into that area,” she says. Specifically, Fuerstenau would like to see new businesses that are geared towards people of all ages and that range from the social to the mundane. “There aren’t really many restaurants,” she says. “Or even just services that people could get, whether it be a dentist or a doctor or just anything like that... If we could even get a little postal annex... there really isn’t anything like that in our area.”
A designated main street area, which is the primary component of the proposed business district improvements, would serve as a cohesive centerpiece of the Cully neighborhood. Potential additions to the area include shops and restaurants, as well as park space and a community center. “There’s a real lack of public gathering spaces,” says Bischoff. “Places where parents and children can go.”
The other main concern that will be addressed in the next year is the poor quality of many of Cully’s streets. “The transportation piece is actually a much bigger piece of the project,” says Bischoff. “Cully has a significant lack of street connectivity, if you look at any neighborhood to the south or west of Cully… you’ll see that there’s a pretty good street grid and that there are streets with sidewalks. [Cully] is a neighborhood that lacks sidewalks pretty much everywhere.”
While the project will not be able to address every street in the neighborhood, residents and other local property owners will collaborate to determine a handful of streets that would best serve the community if improved. Specifically, the group will focus on streets that lead to the local schools and connect residential areas to commercial areas. “The city is going to look at new designs for local streets,” says Bischoff, “to see if there are any new or innovative ways to design streets that could fulfill needs but also be cost-effective or greener.”
One complicating factor is the fact that some Cully residents would prefer their streets to keep their rural feel, and thus they oppose renovations to some residential streets. “Not everybody’s on that page,” says Fuerstenau, referring to the general desire to improve streets in the neighborhood. “There are a few people who like living in a rural area, and they feel that if they did have the street improvement, that would bring more traffic to their street.” Despite such potential stumbling blocks, Bischoff and Fuerstenau agree that the majority of Cully residents are in favor of improving the neighborhood’s streets.
Bischoff says that while the two aspects of the project will be addressed in great detail over the coming year, the business aspect is much more likely to produce results in the near future. “It’s really starting a framework for allowing more local businesses to happen in Cully,” she says. “I think that with the zoning, if the recommendations were to be adopted… that would provide more opportunity for changes that could happen very soon.”
The scope of the street improvements ensures that they won’t happen as quickly. “The transportation piece is definitely longer term,” says Bischoff. Nevertheless, the planning period will get the ball rolling on projects that are sorely needed. Above all, says Bischoff, “They’re both setting up a framework for the future.”
